Decisions

> In refusing to hire Mrs. Ida Phillips as an assembly-line trainee in Orlando, Fla., the Martin Marietta Corp. explained that it did employ women, but not mothers of preschool-age children, presumably because of absenteeism. Last week, in its first such ruling, the Supreme Court unanimously declared that the company's policy violated the sex-equality provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The court gave Martin Marietta one out: it can still try to prove that women like Mrs. Phillips are less able to do the job than men who have equally young children. Only in that case might the policy be legal.

> Attorney General John Mitchell argues that without obtaining a court order he can authorize wiretaps on "dangerous" domestic groups; he also claims that the evidence thus obtained can be used in court. "The contention of the Attorney General is in error," ruled U.S. District Judge Damon Keith in Detroit last week. "Such power held by one individual was never contemplated by the framers of our Constitution and cannot be tolerated today." It was a rare victory for William Kunstler, who represents three White Panthers accused of conspiracy to bomb a CIA office in Ann Arbor, Mich. In ruling the wiretap illegal, Judge Keith wrote: "An idea which seems to permeate much of the Government's argument is that a dissident domestic organization is akin to an unfriendly foreign power and must be dealt with in the same fashion."

> To protect family harmony as well as prevent collusion against insurance companies, American law has generally barred a child from suing his parents for injuries resulting from parental negligence. Now the California Supreme Court has joined a growing trend and condemned the policy as a "legal anachronism." Since most suits are in fact intended to recover money from the parents' insurer, said the court, family harmony is not really threatened. Beyond that, "we find intolerable the notion that a parent may act negligently with impunity." The court moderated the impact of its decision on parental authority by declaring the test to be: "What would an ordinarily reasonable and prudent parent have done in similar circumstances?"

> All over the U.S. the death penalty is under a variety of complex legal attacks. Alabama's Court of Appeals has banned executions for an almost ludicrously simple reason. According to state law, all executions must be carried out "within the walls of Kilby Prison at Montgomery." However, the electric chair was moved to another prison in 1969, and Kilby was torn down. In a 2-to-l decision last week, the appeals judges banned electrocutions until the law is amended--and exempted current death-row inmates from any ex post facto use of the amended law. Result: Alabama's 28 doomed prisoners will escape execution, provided the court lets the ruling stand.

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